help-for-recovery:

If you’re feeling really full and bloated (maybe even in pain too!):

1. Try lying down, imagine your family members after a big Christmas dinner- people like lying down because it feels like there’s more space inside our tummies.
2. Fill a hot water bottle and rest it on your tummy. I like to put mine under my top, right on the skin.
3. Put a wheat bag into the microwave and rest it on your tummy. The heat is very soothing.
4. Don’t drink any liquids for a while as it will make you feel even fuller, plus it’ll dilute your digestive enzymes down and make it slower for your stomach to digest.
5. Change into sweat pants or else open your button. Be kind to yourself- don’t wear tight clothes and torture yourself!
6. Peppermint is great for indigestion. You can drink peppermint tea or get peppermint oil capsules.
7. Distract yourself with something nice. I personally find Disney DVDs inavaluable.
8. In recovery it’s very common to have indigestion while your body gets used to all the food. Give it time. If you have trapped wind, then relieve yourself of the trapped wind :P
9. Keep redirecting your thoughts if you find yourself getting intrusive ed thougts that you over-ate or binged etc. You didn’t. Your body just needs to get a chance to get used to lots of food. It’s very normal to feel very full after only a small amount of food. Everything moves slower as our digestive system is made of muscle. If you’ve been restricting, then you’ve probably lost muscle mass in your digestive system making it weaker. If you’ve been purging, then your body has been severely damaged, so give it time to adjust.
10. DO NOT PURGE.
11. DO NOT TRY TO COMPENSATE IN ANY WAY.
12. Avoid using a laxative unless your doctor prescribes it.

Be kind to yourself during this time.

Lots of reasssurance.

Lots of kind self talk.

Let’s do this :)

xxx